Contents

Class Features

MOMENTUM: Successive killing blows add 25% bonus damage (up to 100%)

SCARRED: Immune to the first affliction suffered

MARTYR: Extra altar in dungeon

Note: the only valid status ailments for "Scarred" are mana burn, poison, weakening, and corrosion. You still suffer the negative consequence of the first "scar", meaning you will still suffer the first hit of weakening and corrosion, and will still lose all your mana when mana burned for the first time (though you will immediately become immune to it and can regenerate mana by exploring normally).

Race

Orc

The Orc makes by far the best race for Crusaders. Due to his massive attack bonus, an Orc Crusader's heightened base attack will be multiplied to enormous proportions. It is virtually impossible for a Human Crusader to exceed the attack power of an Orc Crusader, and other races simply don't make sense by comparison.

Strategy

The Crusader can build up to massive amounts of attack bonus, reaching up to +100% after killing four enemies. This allows Crusaders to deal massive amounts of damage that other classes simply couldn't achieve with a single blow. On the other hand, the Crusader loses this bonus if he doesn't land a killing blow, so he must repeatedly kill low-level monsters to rebuild his momentum and deal his maximum damage. This makes it exceedingly important to leave lots of low-level monsters alive for the boss battle, and makes him work very well with deities like Tikki Tooki. Note that killing monsters that don't grant XP will still cause your momentum to disappear. This makes it very difficult to play the Crusader on the Hexx Ruins level.

Normally you will want to be immune to either weakening or mana burn, depending on your dungeon. It is a good idea to seek out the type of affliction you want to be immune to as early as possible. This is especially important when using Patches. Being immune to mana burn makes it much easier to use Patches, but he might randomly poison you when you level up, so you must gain mana burn immunity as soon as possible. For some reason, Jehora Jeheyu's punishments do not trigger the "scarred" effect, so you will need to find immunity from another source if you wish to use the Crusader to ignore Jehora Jeheyu's penalties.

One particularly devious strategy with the Crusader is the so-called "one-hit-wonder". This Crusader both prepares a strength potion and purchases one in dungeon, and otherwise works to maximize his attack bonus (usually by playing orc and converting just about everything). He then builds up to 100% momentum and activates each of the strength potions, regenerating his mana between each activation. This will grant him a single attack that deals several hundred damage. Against weaker bosses, this is often enough to kill them outright with a single blow. These strength potions last for only a single attack, however, so make sure it counts!

Prior to a change to the apothecary that reduced the number of strength potions a character can have simultaneously, the Crusader was one of the only classes in the game that could kill a boss with melee attacks as a level 1 character.